HOW WELL DO YOU COMMUNICATE?

When talking about communication many ideas come to our mind. Communication can be seen as a concept based on the coordinated management of meaning,  as well as a more general and basic skill necessary for survival in society, or just as an ability to use language to communicate within a specific situation. 

It is commonly found in schools that students don't listen well enough to identify the main ideas of a lecture, they pretty much don't understand the material presented in class. Students don't understand the directions given orally to perform tasks. It also happens that students have a hard time presenting accurate and clear reports, summaries during class using appropriate grammar and pronunciation. Students are not able to express their feelings on issues or perform the basic social aspects of requesting appointments, concluding a conversation or even the fact of introducing themselves to others.

In order to express oneself clearly and effectively contribute to a student's success in school, teachers who are concerned about developing the speaking and listening communication skills need to use methods for assessing their students' progress. Teachers always need to take into account the principles of reliability, validity,and fairness.  Furthermore, teachers need to make sure to use the appropriate methods, instruments and procedures available.  I consider tasks should be focused on topics that all students can easily talk about, because students should not only feel comfortable while speaking, but also they should feel that they are communicating meaningful content to a real audience.

ASSESSING LISTENING

Listening, the most widely used language skill, is often used in conjunction with the other skills of speaking, reading and writing. Listening is not only a skill area in language performance, but is also a critical means of acquiring a second language. 

Assessing listening is not an easy job since it cannot be simply measured by observing student's performance. Brown stated “When you propose to assess someone’s ability in one or a combination of the four skills, you assess that person’s competence, but you observe the person’s performance” Active listening is vital tool for improving communications with others both professionally and personally. 

Listening involves "bottom-up" processing that is when listeners attend to data in the incoming speech signals and "top-down" processing in which listeners utilise prior knowledge and expectations to create meaning. Both bottom-up and top-down processing are assumed to take place at various levels of cognitive organisation: phonological, grammatical, lexical and propositional.

Teachers, The Core of Education.

      


      More than anyone else, teachers are the principal agents involved in second language evaluation. As the core of education, teachers are expected to handle many aspects when it comes to assessing teaching practices and all its components. Assessing and evaluating students, materials and instruction is a complex job. Teachers need to be aware of the different factors influencing their students and their learning.


      It's needed to think of evaluation as a decision-making process, in order to make improvements in the teaching practices. Teachers must take into account aspects such as student's needs, wants, skills, previous knowledge, concentration level, disposition and environment. These observations can lead teachers to make a detailed analysis and find out what suitable materials and sources can be used in their classes, so the students can have a significant learning. Making decisions is not an easy job, but once the teacher has carefully analyzed the different aspects regarding students' behaviors, needs and learning styles, teaching practices may fulfilling students' needs.